Sunday, June 28, 2015

Houston!!!

I have about a million pictures from our trip to Texas, and I could gush for hours about how great it was to see my sisters, and to have all of the cousins together, and all of the fun things we did together, so I had better get started soon. B could not get excited for anything beyond the airplane trip, which he was ecstatic about, but he was not disappointed to discover cousins on the other side. Uncle Ryan picked up me, B, and Sammy at the airport while Todd took the older kids to get our rental car.

Maren already knew that Sammy loved her. She was right. James also felt a lot of Sammy love. We had to vigilantly protect Sammy from excessive James love.

Sammy didn't seem to feel one way or another about meeting his aunts and uncles for the first time, but I was glad to see Anni!

We had a lot of rain, overcast weather, and humidity for our first few days in Houston. The kids used one of the rare breaks in the clouds to swim in the backyard pool. This was our first introduction to the Texas mosquitoes, which are bigger.

Our second evening in Houston was the night of a free Houston Symphony performance of Disney music in the park in the Woodlands. B was tired, but Jared and Eloise hadn't adapted to the time change yet, so we were able to stay up late.

The concert was great! They had video clips from the movies and vocalists for all of the songs. Eloise and Maren were in princess heaven. We left before the end of the concert when the kids were obviously beat, and managed to avoid a lot of the post concert traffic.

The next day we went back to the Woodlands (without Anni and Ryan, who had gone to bid farewell to one of their missionaries) to go to a carnival that was supposed to be held there, but found that it had been cancelled due to ten minutes of rain earlier in the day.

The trip was not a total loss, as there was a free trolley to ride.

We were all pretty hungry for lunch, but there was no whining, since everyone wanted to stay on the trolley.

When we got off the trolley, though, three children demolished a chipotle burrito and quesadilla. I'm not sure I've ever seen them eat so much so quickly.

One of the highlights of the trip was Sammy meeting his Grandma Jill for the first time. Or, as Maren calls her, Grandma Jur. L is hard. Here they are waiting for Aunt Cheyenne to arrive.

We weren't as good at keeping secrets as we had hoped, since the first words out of Cheyenne's mouth when she saw us were, "I hoped you would be here!" But it was still amazing to get to see each other, and meet cute Victoria for the first time. All of the kids were confused by the two babies looking so similar.

On Sunday we got to see our friends Nicole and John Holbrook, and their baby Alan. Nicole lived with our family one summer when she, Cheyenne, and John were all working at Astro Camp together. They are in Houston until John finishes his medical residency.